a founder-member of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS). While Benda was imprisoned with Vaclav Havel in Ostrava, they co-wrote a text for the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1980. A devout Roman Catholic, Benda established the Christian Democratic Party in 1989, becoming chairman in 1990. The party later merged with the Civic Democratic Party. Benda's politics were distinct from his former dissident colleagues, and he became an increasingly isolated figure in Czech politics. He was a defender, with qualifications, of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, a position widely shared in Czech liberal and conservative elite circles. Benda stated that Pinochet had "perhaps, his cruel traits, nevertheless they were answers to the extremely undemocratic and extremely cruel advance at the root of international communism." From June 25 to December 31, 1992, Benda was Chairman of the Chamber of the Nations. From 1991 to 1998, Benda served as head of the Bureau for Investigating the Crimes of Communist Party officials. In 1996, he was elected to the Czech Senate for the Prague 1 district, and held the seat until his death in 1999. Legacy Benda's ideas about a Parallel Polis were later revived by a group of scholars at the University of Washington, and a four-story building called Parallel polis has opened in Prague, housing a bitcoin-only cafe, co-working space, makers lab, and "Institute of cryptoanarchy" in Holešovice. In his 2017 book The Benedict Option, author Rod Dreher praised the ideas expressed in Benda's essays and recommended them to American Christians as an example of how to preserve and live their faith in a culture increasingly hostile to it. References Further reading Edited by F. Flagg Taylor IV (2018), The Long Night of the Watchman: Essays by Vaclav Benda, 1977-1989, St. Augustine's Press 1946 births 1999 deaths Mathematicians from Prague Czech Roman Catholics Christian Democratic Party (Czech Republic) politicians Civic Democratic Party (Czech Republic) Senators Members of the Chamber of the People of Czechoslovakia (1986–1990) Members of the Chamber of the People of Czechoslovakia (1990–1992) Members of the Chamber of the People of Czechoslovakia (1992) Czechoslovak mathematicians Czech mathematicians Czechoslovak democracy activists Charter 77 signatories Czechoslovak prisoners and detainees People of the Velvet Revolution Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic) 20th-century Czech philosophers Charles University alumni Czech Roman Catholic writers